The December sun was high and warm, flooding the broad rock-strewn terrace half-way between river and sky, but the battle was still going on. Now that the Yavapais had found out they could not break to freedom, the second soldier line had been advanced, with a dash, to join the first. As fast as it could be loaded and fired, every gun was speeding bullet after bullet into the cave, filling it with a very hailstorm of glancing, crisscrossing lead.

The cave was broad, and seemed to be shallow; and how anybody in there could be alive was a mystery. But alive some of those Apache-Mohaves were, for above the deafening staccato of a hundred carbines rose the death chant and the shrieks and wails and groans and curses.

There was no token of surrender. It was a fight to the death. Cleverly shielded in a niche at his end of the rampart the medicine-man, barely seen through the smoke and dust, was shooting as before, helped by the squaws who handed up guns to him; he certainly wore a charmed shirt. Now and again a warrior bobbed up, fired blindly, and bobbed down.

Micky had long ago used the last of his cartridges. Like Jimmie, he might only lie and watch.

“I told you there would be a good fight!” he shouted, in Jimmie’s ear. “This is the end of these Delt-che people. They fight like wolves in a pen, but it is no use.”

“Look!” shouted back Jimmie, pointing.

An Apache-Mohave boy—he was naked and chubby and could not have been more than three or four years old—had run out, around the cave wall, into the open space in front; and there he stood, sucking his thumb, and scowling at the Americanos as if he wanted the noise stopped. Over he keeled, struck by a chance bullet (for nobody would have shot at him); but he was not dead—he lay and kicked and howled, and all the firing ceased as if by magic.

From the soldiers’ line somebody darted forward. Hurrah!

It was Nan-ta-je. He reached the little boy, grabbed him and at one jump was behind a rock again.

“Hurrah for Joe! Bully for Joe!” Even the Yavapais might have cheered—but Nan-ta-je had been just in time. Scarcely had the uproar of banging guns and howling warriors and shrieking squaws and wailing children been renewed, when down from above rushed a tremendous boulder, bursting like a bomb-shell upon the wall itself.

“Hooh!” ejaculated Micky, astonished.

The firing slackened, everybody outside looked up. On the very top of the canyon, right over the cave mouth, were many figures—soldiers—and Indians! Outlined against the sky, they appeared curiously small.

“By the great horn spoon, thar’s Burns!” exclaimed Joe Felmer.

Surely! Jimmie had forgotten about the Captain Burns and Lieutenant Thomas company, but here they were, soldiers and Pimas, crowding the rim of the cliff, and gazing over as far as they dared. They had returned from following the pony trail, and had heard the shooting. Several of the soldiers were hanging part way—waist far, that is—from the edge, and held in place by other soldiers behind them were aiming their revolvers. The cliff slanted back, above the cave, so that persons above might see its threshold, and the rampart before—and, of course, see the warriors between the two.

But that rock! Here came another! Watch out—soldiers had rolled a second great boulder to the rim—they gave it a final shove, and bounding, ploughing, hurtling, it brought an avalanche down the face of the precipice and landing truly in the mouth of the cave burst thunderously into a hundred pieces.

A third boulder followed immediately. Then two at once. The soldiers and scouts below were cheering and shouting and shooting again, but the crashing of the boulders was louder. The dust they made was denser than the powder smoke—the mouth of the cave could not be seen. But somewhere in that veil were the wretched Yavapais. Jimmie felt sick.

Even the death chant had ceased, across there. Anyway, it could not be heard amidst the other uproar. The Captain Burns men worked hard. The rampart was being crushed and buried. The Major Brown men were standing up while they fired; they were so excited. Jimmie and Micky were standing.

“Down, down with you!” bawled sergeant and corporal. “Wait till the chargin’ order!”

The fight continued, but it was becoming a very one-sided fight. Bombarded by the rock artillery from above, and by the carbines from in front, and held by the cave wall behind, the Apache-Mohaves were being literally wiped out of existence. They were replying not at all; their brave medicine-man had disappeared amidst the murk—the occasional rifts showed him no longer.

Still, it was dangerous, here in front of the cave, for the bursting boulders, piling up in the entrance and shattering the rampart there, sent their fragments flying like pieces of shell, causing the soldiers to duck and laugh as they plied their cartridges.

Now the trumpet sounded—“Cease firing!” The shots died away as Major Brown, standing, waved his arm at the Captain Burns company, on the rim of the precipice over the cave, to signal them to stop rolling down their boulders.

“Prepare to charge!” the orders were repeated, along the line below. The sun was high, marking noon. The battle had been going on for at least five hours!

“Prepare to charge!” Up sprang the line, and at the instant down bounded the last of the boulders, which the officers above had been unable to withhold. It gave one final tremendous jump, and landed well out in front of the cave—“Boom!” Something struck Jimmie—yes, a piece of it caught him as he blindly dodged—and whirling him around knocked him head over heels.

He tried to pick himself up, and a fierce pain stabbed him in the right leg, making him dizzy. He propped on one arm, among the rocks, while his eyes cleared a little. Already the line was running and scrambling forward, soldiers and scouts both; nobody now might pause to tend to him. He stared, blinking weakly. What would happen? Were the Yavapais away back in the cave, somewhere, and where they were waiting, to defend it?

There was Micky, scooting about; and Nan-ta-je, and Joe, and Jack Long, and Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Bourke, their carbines and revolvers poised, as they advanced at double-quick. Right up to the top of the huge pile of shattered rocks climbed the first man—Corporal Thomas Hanlon, he—and glared in; jumped down, out of sight, and over and around poured the others. But not a shot was fired. Evidently all the Yavapais were dead. Oh!

With that, Jimmie sighed, everything swam before him, and he must have fainted, because the next that he knew, Joe Felmer was sopping his face from a canteen, and Micky was squatting beside, grinning.

From the cave sounded the hum of voices; the soldiers and scouts were still busy there. The Burns soldiers and Pimas had come down.

“Hyar! You lie quiet,” ordered Joe. “You got a busted leg, I reckon, an’ you don’t want to see inside that cave, anyhow. Wish I hadn’t, myself.”

“Are they all dead, Joe?” quavered Jimmie, helplessly. Wow, how that leg hurt! But it had been bound up, after a fashion, probably by Joe.

“Ev’ry buck, includin’ the medicine man. Plumb shot through, or smashed; lots of ’em both. Some squaws an’ kids left,” grunted Joe. “It’s what you might call a massacree. Now, you stay hyar, till we’re ready to move ye. I’m needed yonder. Micky can nuss ye; both o’ ye ought to be back with the pack-train—’tain’t no place for boys—’speshully for one who can’t dodge rocks.”

Muttering, Joe (who really was kind-hearted) trudged away.

“Ah, I told you it would be a great fight, Boy-who-sleeps,” grinned Micky Free, as he squatted. “Black Beard is angry, because you are the only one of us wounded; but you will be a warrior, now.”

“Were you in the cave, Red-head?” asked Jimmie, also in Apache.

“Yes. It is very red. All the Yavapai warriors are dead. The medicine chief is dead, under a rock. One old man was partly alive, and he died soon. Some squaws and children hid behind large flat rocks, and under dead people. They will be captives. You will see them. Delt-che is not there; but he has lost his best warriors, and he never will make a good fight again. I am glad we came, Cheemie.”

“What are the Pimas doing, Red-head?” asked Jimmie. For the Pimas, with Chief Owl Ears in the center, were sitting in a bunch and wailing.

“Oh, those Pimas!” scoffed Micky. “They make medicine. They no good any more. They find their Pima who was killed, and now their medicine tells them they must not fight again till after they have mourned him by singing and bathing and not eating. That will take several days. But Apaches wait till they get home. I do not think much of the foolish Pimas. And the Maricopas are the same. All no good—stop fighting and make medicine. Huh!”

The soldiers and scouts worked fast, cleaning out the cave. The squaws and children were placed under guard, the White Mountains and Pimas were given whatever stuff—mescal, dried meat, skins, bows, arrows, lances, guns, and so forth—that they could carry; the remaining supplies (a great quantity) were piled up and set on fire.

Joe and Slim Shorty the cook came hurrying back, with a litter contrived from two lances and a deer hide slung between.

“Got to get out o’ this place,” explained Joe. “Squaw says some other squaws went down below, jest before the fight, to the mescal pits; they’ll carry warnin’ to ’nother rancheria yonder an’ we’ll have the hull caboodle on our backs if we don’t act fast. Easy, now, while we put you in.”

Major Brown was in a hurry to climb up into the open and unite with the pack-train. The long column ascended the winding trail. There were eighteen captives—women and children, several of them wounded. Below, in front of the cave the fire burned fiercely, consuming the supplies and the many bodies heaped upon. Over seventy of the outlaws had been killed. Some were left where they had fallen, in the cave.

After this no Indian would venture inside that cave. The skeletons of the Delt-che people bleached, undisturbed for years.